NOTE: The story itself will seem cheesy, cliche even. It was inspired by a scene I had watched in a drama, and it made me realize the unfair nature of love. How it can surround you your entire life, but the only difference between you living a life showered with love, or lacking said love, is being able to recognize its presence. In the following play, Bo-Yeon does not recognize its presence and faces the consequences thereof.  Tell me what you guys think!

This Love I Knew Not Of

This is a story of love gone unrecognized, and the differing perspectives of those involved in said love. 

The sun is setting. It is autumn. The leaves find their way to the ground as rays of light shine through them, creating paths of amber and scarlet. 

This reminds Bo-Yeon of his lover. He speaks of how each leaf, so similar yet different from the others, reminds him of the different aspects of his lover, and how he fell in love with each aspect, one by one. 

Throughout the play, he is speaking to himself. His lover responds, however, she died the day before in a car accident. He does not realize, but her spirit lies in the seasons unfolding before him. She cannot directly communicate with Bo-yeon, yet their stories are in sync throughout the play. 

Bo-Yeon (gaze trailing an amber leaf): I remember the first day you pinned your hair back. It looked so beautiful. I loved your hair. It smelled of strawberries as you walked by. it was the shade of an abyss that I dreamed of falling into and never returning from. I knew your hair was beautiful…I just didn’t know why I knew that. I still don’t know…

Lover: I pinned it for you. They say opposites attract. So I thought your frazzled look would somehow be compensated by my own: black, straight, and tied back. But you didn’t even look my way, so it didn’t matter. I suppose it hurt too much, for me to think it mattered.

Bo-Yeon: I remember trying to avert my gaze as you sat in front of me. Reminding myself that someone like you would never have done something like this, for a nobody like me. It was just hair anyway…

Lover: You were everything to me.

Bo-Yeon: I would forever be a nobody to you.

Lover: It was love…

Bo-Yeon: Love…I didn’t think so. It was hair, not love. H-A-I-R. Not love. Love is different. I know what love is. Love is…

Lover: My hair…maybe I should have dyed it that day. Maybe you would have noticed then.

Bo-Yeon: I remember your eyes.

Lover: I wish you had looked into my eyes just once. Maybe then you would have seen…

Bo-Yeon: It was so painful to look at them though. They seemed…shattered, broken. I always wondered who did that to you.

Lover: They were shattered, broken. Because of you.

Bo- Yeon: I wanted to fix them, but at the same time, they were beautiful. Beauty doesn’t need fixing, does it?

Lover: I wish you had healed them; fixed me like a broken mirror so that you could have seen your reflection though them…

Bo- Yeon: I wish I could have known what you were thinking.

Lover: Because I was thinking of you…of us.

Bo-Yeon (looking at a scarlet tinted leaf): Your lips were always the perfect shade of red…they were always so vibrant, and formed a subtle crescent moon lying on its side. I remember staring at them when you were giving presentation’s. I always wanted to destroy their perfection, with the collision of my lips against yours…but that never worked out. Besides, only lover’s do such things.

Lover: I had always thought you starred at my lips rather than my eyes whenever I was giving a presentation, but maybe it was just me.

Bo-Yeon: You were so passionate about everything. As though the shade of your lips reflected what you loved, who you loved…

Lover: I was hoping you were though; I wanted to believe that you were.

Bo-Yeon: I don’t even know why I payed attention to such things, other girls had lips too. But not like yours…

Lover: I always trailed your gaze when other girls were presenting, but you always looked them in the eye. Oh how happy that made me.

Bo-Yeon: I always looked other girls in the eye. Probably because…well because…huh…never mind that.

Lover. Oh how you loved me.

Bo-Yeon: Maybe it was love…or lust. Probably just lust.

Lover: I remember fainting in gym class.

Bo-Yeon (looking at the trees now. Specifically the twisted and curved shape of their branches.) I remember when you fainted…something cracked inside me. I had to be next to you. It brought me solace I suppose. Seeing you at school the next day helped untie the knot in my chest. I could breathe again…no idea why my breathing depended on you though.

Lover: I don’t quite remember what happened. But it was sweet to see relief in your eyes the day after.

Bo-Yeon (looking at a tree): Everything seems to be dying around me. Yet it’s so beautiful. I miss you. I wish you were here with me. I love autumn…oh no, wait…you love autumn…

Lover: I know you loved me though.

Bo-Yeon: Perhaps…I love autumn too?

Lover: Even if you didn’t know it.

Bo-Yeon (eyes tearing up): Yes, I probably do love autumn. (feels the tears trailing down his face)…because it reminds me of you…of how I loved you…(fully crying now).

Lover: You often reminded me of autumn…I suppose that is why I loved it so much. I knew you would never know I loved you. I knew you would never accept it as love. And I’m sorry to say that one day you’ll feel cold, like the trees are about to feel, but I suppose they are luckier for they will feel warmth again.

Bo-Yeon: I loved you. Yes, it was love. (eyes dart back and forth between all the leaves on the ground) I wish you’d come back to me…the trees are so lucky. At least they always receive what beautified them come spring.

Lover: They are most definitely luckier. You will never have me, nor see me again. My love will never beautify you nor your life, and yours will never heal me. Why? Why didn’t you see it earlier…why didn’t you…?

(A cold breeze begins to stir)

Bo-Yeon: I’m so cold…so so cold.

(Draw curtain)

Explanation/in-depth analysis:

One definition of the name Bo-Yeon is a widespread abyss, just like his lover’s hair mentioned earlier. Her hair, in a sense, embodied him, yet he never understood that parallel. Furthermore, the term ‘beautiful’ is used repeatedly to describe different aspects of his lover, yet he never considers how love itself is described/ defined by others. In fact, people often characterize love as a beautiful chaos. A beauty that he clearly never recognized. Furthermore, people are often oblivious to how the opposing individual feels, and yes even though this is a bit extreme, it captures the essence of loving parts of people and the importance of putting those parts together. One must recognize why they observe what they observe in order to know how it makes them feel. Furthermore, Bo-Yeon, especially near the end, was characterized as a tree that entered winter but never returned. In other words, it never came back to life. Simply because his love went unrecognized and never completed the cycle it was meant to, because of this lack of recognition. His lover died without receiving love in return. Some people cannot see love. They do not know when it is there. And so they become oblivious to such things until they are no longer there.